


Lesson

by SharpestRose



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are eight unrecorded years between the beginning and the middle of the story in the film. This is one of those missing afternoons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lesson

The courtyard of Fort Charles is site for many of history's important moments. The wicked are punished here, hanged by the neck until dead. The diligent and upstanding are promoted. And, now, a boy falls sprawling onto his back and somewhere over on the shaded steps a girl says "bad luck, Will."

James offers a hand down and Will stands up gingerly, nursing a jarred elbow. "I think I must give up for today, sir. If I do myself real injury, Mr Brown will have my head."

"Very well," James says, sheathing his sword. Every time he gives Will a lesson such as this one he is astounded to see how practiced and sure the boy's movements have become. Once upon a time, James worried that Mr Brown was working the lanky sixteen-year-old too hard, but now he tends to suspect that the shadowed look of sleep deprivation in Will's eyes is testament to the lad's own determination to learn the art of the sword.

With such knowledge, the boy might one day be a craftsman. Nobody can make a truly beautiful weapon unless they understand its use and function from the inside; Will is fast on his way to gaining just that knowledge. James is more than happy to help him achieve this ambition, it's easy to see that staying in the forge will never offer Will the life he is capable of living.

"You must each have a length of skin," a bright voice calls from the shadowed cool of the stairs. The blade of Elizabeth's small knife flashes as she peels the green apple deftly, stripping the skin in one long looping coil and then snapping it into two equal pieces. She sits as imperiously as a young queen on the stone step, offering the apple strips on her upturned palms. Will, red-faced and still short of breath from the lesson, takes one of the pieces from her hand shyly.

"Thank you, Miss Swann," he says in a quiet voice.

"You are too kind, Elizabeth," are James's words as he accepts his own half of the ribbon-like fruit. She smiles at them both, her eyes bright and excited from the spectacle of the duel.

Elizabeth Swann is sixteen years old, like William, and on her the age wears like a new-hatched bird desperate to learn flight. Her childhood freckles are fading like memories, the rounded swells of puppy fat slimming into grace and elegance. She's not a young lady prone to laughter, but when she can be stirred to this response it is worth the effort. She watches the lessons as often as she can, her soft gasps from the sidelines distracting both the participants more than once.

"Thank you once again, Captain Norrington," Will says, his words still quiet against the muted sounds of the bay beyond the walls of the fort. "Good day, Miss Swann."

"Elizabeth, Will. _Eee Lizza Bethhhh_. I'm sure you're capable of it," Elizabeth says, gently teasing. Will simply bows and takes his leave, obviously doing his best not to limp on a sore ankle.

"Shall I walk you back to your home, Miss Swann?" James asks. She stands, smacking him lightly on the arm.

"Don't you start with that. Is my name so terrible that nobody wishes to use it at all?"

They are standing on the same step now, and James realises that Elizabeth is as tall as a fine-boned adult woman already. It is sometimes difficult to remember how young she is, though to James's own twenty-seven years sixteen seems barely out of swaddling clothes.

"On the contrary, Elizabeth, your name is pleasant enough to be savoured for special occasions," James replies as he forces himself to push aside ruminations on her maturity. He has never mastered the art of talking freely with women who are his contemporaries, and once Elizabeth becomes a woman in his eyes he will lose this easy warmth with her to stutters and stammers, like young Mr Turner already has.

Elizabeth smiles, blushing slightly at the compliment, and bites into the skinless apple. Her sleeve falls away to her elbow as she does so, unveiling her fair and creamy skin. Well, fair and creamy under the slightly-faded black ink designs, anyway.

"Playing at pirate again, we were?" James asks with a smirk, the ladylike allure vanishing into the afternoon breeze and leaving simply a girl he has grown fond of in the years since her father became Governor of the port. Elizabeth nods, merrily jumping ahead as they begin to walk out of the fort.

"Yes. Father got some new papers from London. So many wonderful stories, I've been devouring them so quickly I'll have to ask him for more. Oh, they're so _exciting_ , don't you think? Daring and bold and -"

"Unwashed?" offers James, raising his eyebrows. "Real pirates are not so romantic as those in penny dreadfuls. Their smell tends to be their most memorable trait."

Elizabeth blithely ignores the comment, as usual. "Captain Jack Sparrow sacked Nassau port without firing a single shot. Can you imagine that? _And_ he escaped the East India company, even though they had _seven_ agents on him."

James can't help but smile as he falls into step beside her while she chatters. Her use of italics alone gives the sensational stories she favours a run for their money. "This Sparrow is your current favourite, then?"

"He has a tattoo just like this one," Elizabeth pulls her white lace sleeve up, showing off the work of an afternoon with a pen and an inkwell - an afternoon, no doubt, scheduled for lessons other than the art of temporary body decoration. "It's a sparrow, just like his name. Isn't that _clever_?"

"Indeed," says James, not trusting himself to comment further. Elizabeth bubbles on, talking of daring rescues and perilous adventures in lurid detail as they approach her home. As the house comes into sight her chatter runs down to a stop, her expression darkening into sadness.

"Is something the matter?"

"Father's been in a mood all day. Mama... My mother would have had her birthday today. It always makes him melancholy."

James nods in sympathy. "Shall I come and pay a social visit to him, to make the afternoon easier on yourself?"

Elizabeth shakes her head, doing her best to smile. "No, it's all right. I suppose I should try and miss her too. Isn't it terrible, that I hardly remember my own mother?"

With a shake of his head, James hesitates and then reaches out to touch her arm in a gesture of comfort. She presses against the touch gratefully, and James is glad now of the ridiculous drawing on her forearm. Without it there, he would have to notice the warmth and softness of her skin.

"Is your mother alive, James?" Elizabeth asks, her voice so different now from the merry rambling about buccaneers.

"No. I was raised by my grandfather. A good man; very stern." James wonders if it would be very improper to touch her hair. It has lightened with the years, the sun and sea wind giving glints of gold to the warm brown locks, and he has no doubt it would be soft as silk under his palm.

"I nearly died too, when Mama did. Father thought he was to lose us both. I remember... I had a loose tooth, one at the front, and when I saw blood on my handkerchief I thought I must have knocked it loose with my coughing. But the tooth was still there, loose but not yet ready to fall. My parents wept when I showed them and I didn't understand why..." Elizabeth's voice trails off, her eyes blinking down for a long moment. James moves one cautious arm around her shoulders, not daring to do more. Elizabeth smiles, shaking her head as a way to compose herself and straightening her back.

"But here I am, still annoying father to this day. He took this post for me, you know. England was too cold and damp for my lungs. They're still weak even now. You should see me when I'm nervous; I can hardly breathe at all." She looks up at James, smiling shakily. He smiles back, a fierce need to protect this child-woman from all the world surprising him as it forms in his chest. He would do anything for her, James realises. Anything she asked, anything she wanted. No matter what it might be.

"I should go inside," Elizabeth says after what feels like a long time. Her lashes are damp and very dark, her young face haunted and sad.

"You know, Elizabeth." James's tone in conspiratorial. "The Navy receives a lot more information concerning pirates than the papers from England ever hear word of. Perhaps you would be interested in seeing some of the dispatches? I believe I read one just the other day... some rogue causing trouble for a vicar in Barbados. What was his name again... something strange, a bird name. Martin? Swallow? I can't seem to recall..."

" _Sparrow!_ " Elizabeth's eyes light up, the shadows of sadness vanishing as excitement animates her pale face. "Oh, _would_ you? Really?"

James grins. "I shall do my best."

Impulsively - like so much of Elizabeth, who lives every moment as if it existed without consequence - she stands tip-toed and kisses his cheek. James blinks, the skin her lips touched feeling as if it has been branded, marking him forever as one smitten. With a final coltish grin, Elizabeth turns and runs up the drive to her home.

James looks down at his hand, still holding the long strip of apple peel. It tastes a little bit like late afternoon sunlight might. He walks back towards the fort, his thoughts unknowable to any but himself.


End file.
